


Offering

by ama



Category: Generation Kill
Genre: Canon Jewish Character, Character Study, Drabble, Gen, Religious Imagery & Symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-10 01:26:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7824841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ama/pseuds/ama





	Offering

What he says is "The world's been going downhill since man first offered entrails to the gods."

What he means is _there is a temple in the desert that has been crumbling for two thousand years and I can feel my heart eroding with it._

What he means is that no matter how many times he sees the chaplain don his camo stole and raise his hands, he will never be convinced that _that_  is prayer.

Prayer is sacrifice. Prayer is the gnawing feeling in his stomach twenty-two hours into a fast and three to go. It's taking hairpin turns at sixty miles per hour because he knows that his life does not belong to him, because he has faith that he will either die or live according to God's will and the friction of tires against concrete. It's kissing bullet cartridges like tzitzit because death is life is Torah is holy, he kisses the bullet to praise what is holy in the world. It's beating his fist against his chest on Yom Kippur so hard that he leaves bruises, leaves red imprints of his knuckles, pops one blood vessel for every sin. It's staring down death in silence and howling at God, _fuck You fuck You how could You let this happen why did You let me do this._  It's the tension before the trigger pull, the kickback of a rifle, the moment when he does something unforgivable in the hopes that God will forgive and knowing that He won't.

Prayer is the gunpowder smell of a lit candle, one for the dead, two for peace, seven for time, nine for the holy martyrs long since forgotten. Prayer is crusts of bread scorched in an empty oven and MREs spoiling in the desert sun. Prayer is the temple, bleached, baking, in Jerusalem. Prayer is burning, burning, burning...

He does not say this. What he says is "He's a fucking POG. What's more, he's an officer POG..."

Still he feels the sun at his back, hot as a brand, hot as the bush that was not consumed, hot as the fire that was never supposed to go out.


End file.
